This topic was bound to come up sooner or later, so we might as well get this out of the way.
Here's an interesting snippet I found on Human Rights Watch:

Quote:

Quote:In the recent years we have also seen a new factor emerging in the social struggle in rural areas in which the "backward classes" have been surging forward to take up positions of power and control in society, knocking down the upper castes who had held sway in such positions all along in the past. In this process of marching forward, the backward classes tend to push back the Scheduled Castes and others who occupy the lower rung in the social hierarchical ladder. There is greater tension between structural neighbors in this hierarchy than between the top level and the bottom level.[53]

The pattern has since solidified such that caste clashes are far more prevalent between scheduled castes and backward castes than they are between these groups and upper castes. The Home Ministry's Annual Report for 1995 reported that caste-related incidents in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Maharashtra increased by 25 to 30 percent from previous years. A majority of these incidents were taking place between scheduled castes and OBCs.[54] The trend has continued, particularly in the state of Tamil Nadu, as documented in Chapter V.

I know it's convenient to blame all of India's problems on a particular caste whose name begins with a "B", but in the interest of rationalism, let's try to be fair when apportioning blame.

Their identities are still based on the differences in the purity and pollution sanctified by the brahminism. The class identity has not developed even though educationally and economically they were on the same plane until now.

For that matter, even during the 'brahmin raj' the violent clashes were between or within Sudras and Asprishyas as every group wanted to keep other group in their 'position' so that they didn't lose their higher purity. The caste system has always been a self-sustaining phenomenon.

I have been very impressed with the brahmins. I mean brahmins must be having the last laugh in Tamil Nadu and EV Ramasamy who understood how god and the caste system so intricately connected and strove for an atheistic revolution has lost out completely.

(16-Jul-2010, 06:07 AM)TTCUSM Wrote: This topic was bound to come up sooner or later, so we might as well get this out of the way.
Here's an interesting snippet I found on Human Rights Watch:

Quote:

Quote:In the recent years we have also seen a new factor emerging in the social struggle in rural areas in which the "backward classes" have been surging forward to take up positions of power and control in society, knocking down the upper castes who had held sway in such positions all along in the past. In this process of marching forward, the backward classes tend to push back the Scheduled Castes and others who occupy the lower rung in the social hierarchical ladder. There is greater tension between structural neighbors in this hierarchy than between the top level and the bottom level.[53]

The pattern has since solidified such that caste clashes are far more prevalent between scheduled castes and backward castes than they are between these groups and upper castes. The Home Ministry's Annual Report for 1995 reported that caste-related incidents in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Maharashtra increased by 25 to 30 percent from previous years. A majority of these incidents were taking place between scheduled castes and OBCs.[54] The trend has continued, particularly in the state of Tamil Nadu, as documented in Chapter V.

I know it's convenient to blame all of India's problems on a particular caste whose name begins with a "B", but in the interest of rationalism, let's try to be fair when apportioning blame.

In the interest of rationalism, you should stop assuming what atheists think and starting threads where you don't give proper replies to posters.

Nirmukta is not Human Rights Watch.
There are no 'lower castes' and 'upper castes'. All are equal and same. We will continue our endeavour to free people's minds from their false beliefs imposed and perpetuated by vested interests.

I read and re-read your original post a few times. I still don't get how what you quoted is any way related to what you eventually wrote. How does the fact that people of the "lowest" castes and the "middle level" castes fighting it out in any way absolve what has been carried out by the "higher" castes in the past (or even at present)?

Also, let me be clear at the word go: I do not like making generalisations about any person belonging caste, class, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. However, "bhraminism" is a concept and is different from a "bhraman", who is simply a person born into a bhraman family. What has been carried out in the name of caste in India historically, and even today, is downright pathetic. The system itself is perverse.

If physical violence in the way of mobs pelting stones is the criterion by which one is to judge which caste gets blame and which doesn't, then of course Bhramans will seem saintly. Bhramans today are employed in the choicest of positions around our country. It is usually the poor who take part in mob violence, not civil servants and professors. The lowest castes have been systemically constrained economically and socially over centuries.

Additionally, Bhramans in India already have a certain position socially. The "competition" today for socio-political space is between the dalits and OBCs.

I wish the OP responded to the queries in this thread and made his position clear. I suspect that the OP is talking about bashing brahmins for "the apparent oppression of the lower castes over the centuries". This is quite likely the position of a large number of people in India, and I want to point out that its quite unproductive.

My personal bash-wish was for Western Europeans (esp Brits) for their barbaric imperialism/colonialism of much of the world, esp India. A very small sampling of their atrocities against mankind is the wiping out of the entire native population of South America (war and mainly disease), and then North America. In Tasmania, the aborigines were completely wiped out by late 1860s (IIRC). Not to mention the crimes against other species.. they ate-to-extinction defenseless flightless birds (dodos, etc), passenger pigeons, hunted-to-extinction tasmanian wolves, etc.

Quote:Does the past sanction the claims we make in the present: for land, artworks, reparations, independence? The answer is a paradigm of philosophy: it is “yes and no,” for it genuinely depends on individual cases, and there is no general rule. This is mainly because some past-based claims, such as those about “national identity,” are a load of nonsense, while others, such as claims by post-second world war German Jewish survivors to the property expropriated from them by the Nazis, are manifestly just.
...
Consider the question of apologies and reparations to the descendants of Africans taken into New World slavery between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, some 12m of them by most estimates. This was a horrible crime. Direct descendants claim a special relation to this history, which some regard as entitling them to reparations now. A hidden premise is that direct descendants have more claim to be appalled by the history of slavery than others. That is very questionable.

So, lets not do any brahmin bashing. Instead, lets do Brahmanism bashing, and as Dr Kamath says, accept the Constitution of India as our Dharma, and wipeout the crappy caste system.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has - Margaret Mead

European is an ethnic/geographical identity. Nazism or Aryanism or plainly Racism is an ideology or philosophy like Brahmanism or the Varnashrama. The descendants of Europeans do not have any identity based on their ideology. Also, descendants of Nazis of Nazism are not Nazis (and Nazi identity is no longer mainstream). However, descendants of Brahmins of Brahmanism are Brahmins. And Brahmin identity is still mainstream. To overcome this contradiction I would think Brahmins should get a separate identity like Parsis and should no longer be associated with other castes in anyway.

Brahmins( I mean those who uphold the caste system) are so clever that they will instigate the OBC to bash up the dalith and watch the fun. In our place I have seen them bribing some of the daliths to beat up their fellow daliths to avoid the atrocities cases! In coastal Karnataka the Hindutvawadis started with the upper castes using the OBCs to do the dirty work for them. Some of them realised that and have now directly taken up politics and are trying to get 'due representation'.

The following 2 users Like narendra's post:2 users Like narendra's postprabhu_g, TwoFace